Swiss gold lever with second time zone and seconde morte Circa 1855

Gold full hunter
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A Swiss 18 carat gold hunting cased lever pocket watch with a second time zone and seconde morte, circa 1855. Bridge movement, lever escapement, screw compensation balance, independent jumping center seconds.
White enamel dial with radial Roman time indication at 9 and another at 3 o’clock, subsidiary seconds at 6 and an outer minute track with Arabic quarter hour numerals. Engine turned case, an engraved monogram and crest on the front, maker mark PF.
Dial signed, case numbered.
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Diameter: 49 mm
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Weight: 92 g
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Signed: Patek, Philippe & Cie Genève
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At the time when the present pocket watch was produced, Patek Philippe had already gained an excellent reputation and thus become a target for counterfeiters. While the watch bears the Patek Philippe & Cie, Genève signature on the dial, it was by no means made by the brand. It is, however, a high-quality timepiece with remarkable complications such as the second time zone and the dead-centre seconds (seconde morte).
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As early as in the 1870s, Adrien Philippe wrote the following about the forgeries of the clocks: Moreover, in general, the pompous inscriptions, more or less adorned with arabesques, have no other purpose than to seduce the eyes in order to better mislead the buyer.
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The seconde morte, also known as dead-beat seconds, is a complication of a mechanical movement in which the second-hand moves every second. This is in contrast to the usual ‘running’ of the second hand. This complication is rare and was seen in the years before the quartz revolution, the 1970’s and 1980’s, but actually died a silent death because of the same quartz revolution. The reason for this was that the second hand moves per second in almost the same way as quartz watches, which ultimately also use a frequency of 1Hz. With that, the ‘running’ second hand became the distinction between mechanical watches and quartz watches. Incidentally, that external similarity only applies to the second hand jumping per second, the underlying mechanism of the dead seconds complication is of course of a completely different order.